No one was injured Monday in a fire which caused significant damage to several condominium units in the 2100 block of Dogwood Lane in the Westchester Village on the Green complex off 23rd Street, the Chesterton Fire Department said.

Capt. Tony Coslet told the Chesterton Tribune today that firefighters were dispatched at 12:18 p.m. after a resident in the 2136 unit of the six-unit, two-story condo block reported smoke. The first responders on the scene observed “heavy smoke” coming from the condo block’s roof and—after the Porter and Liberty Township volunteer departments responded automatically under a mutual aid agreement—a first and then a second alarm were activated, mustering additional assistance.

On the first alarm: Valparaiso’s ladder truck; the Washington Township’s air van, from which firefighters filled their air tanks; and a Burns Harbor engine to man the CFD station on stand-by

On the second alarm: Burns Harbor’s engine from the CFD station to the scene; a South Haven engine; Portage’s ladder truck; a Pines engine; and a Beverly Shores engine to the CFD station.

Firefighters used a total of only around 6,000 gallons of water to extinguish the blaze, which Coslet said never extended beyond the second story into the attic. But the fire caused substantial damage to the middle two of the six condo units and some as well to each of the two units on either side. Coslet put the total value of the building at roughly $750,000 and estimated damage to the structure at $200,000 and that to contents at $100,000.

Although the fire was initially reported by a resident in the 2136 unit, Lt. Brandon Smith, investigating the blaze, said that it actually began in the kitchen wall on the first story of the 2134 unit, then spread up the common wall shared by the two units into the second story.

Smith has ruled the fire accidental and determined the cause to be some electrical malfunction.

“We got a pretty good knock-down,” Coslet said, and while a lot of overhaul was required—because the fire started in the wall—there was no cellulose insulation involved in this incident as there had been on Sunday’s fire on Griffin Lake Ave.

But the response could have been severely complicated if the fire had started later in the afternoon, Coslet noted, when an Indiana-American Water Company crew was scheduled to shut off the water to the Village on the Green complex to repair a broken water main. “It’s such a large building,” Coslet said, “and if we’d had a problem with water supply, things would have been a lot tougher.”

Also at the scene: Porter hospital EMS, the Chesterton Police Department providing traffic control; and the Porter County Chapter of the American Red Cross, which supplied refreshments and made arrangements for families displaced by the fire.

The CFD cleared the scene at 4:20 p.m.